If there are two things that Elon Musk loves, they must be tweeting and using his tweets to tweak Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — especially when it comes to the two billionaires’ private space programs.

So it should probably have come as no surprise that Musk, who in addition to running Tesla is also CEO of space-exploration company SpaceX, went on Twitter late Thursday to poke at Bezos and his Blue Origin space company. The impetus for Musk’s cheeky tweet was Blue Origin unveiling the Blue Moon, its first planned lunar lander.

Bezos showed off the Blue Moon at a presentation Thursday. The New York Times wrote a story about the lunar lander, which included an image from Bezos’ presentation that showed the Blue Moon on the moon and the words “Blue Moon” across the lander.

Musk started his tweet saying, “Oh stop teasing, Jeff,” next to an image of a winking face emoji. But there was more. The rest of the tweet included an altered image from the Times’ story that showed the Blue Moon upon the moon’s surface. Only under a different name.

In the image tweeted by Musk, the word “Moon” had been marked out and replaced by … “Balls.”

Rex Crum is the senior web editor for the business section for The Mercury News and Bay Area News Group. He also writes about business and technology for the publications' print and web editions, and has covered business and technology for nearly two decades. A native of Seattle, he remains a diehard Seahawks and Mariners fan and is imparting his fandom to his Oakland-native wife and two young daughters.

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